Bring Him Home
by QL Quanta
Summary: Sam has leaped into the ether as himself, leaving Al with a new life which includes his beloved Beth and four daughters. But can a love and friendship as strong as Sam and Al’s really be meant to never happen?


**BRING HIM HOME**

_By QL Quanta_

Summary: Sam has leaped into the ether as himself, leaving Al with a new life which includes his beloved Beth and four daughters. But can a love and friendship as strong as Sam and Al's really be meant to never happen?

Disclaimer: They're not mine. If they were, that last episode of _QL_ never would've happened.

Timeline: Takes place after the last episode of the television series.

* * *

**SAM**

_August 8, 1953_

It was true. Losing a loved one was a pain you never got over.

I'd gotten Tom back. I'd kept Katie from marrying that asshole who beat the shit out of her. I'd gotten to say good-bye to my dad. I didn't lose them, really, even though in a sense I did. I'd made good on the silent promises I'd made to my family when I first contemplated leaping into the past to alter history.

But then I'd gone and done this.

Al was happy. He had to be happy. Beth was going to wait for him, she'd be there for him when he came back from 'Nam. Waiting, just waiting to love him, as he had yearned for all the years I'd known him.

He'd never gotten over Beth. Like me with Donna, Beth was his first, truest love. He'd come back from six years as a POW to find her in another man's bed, another man's house. His inspiration for surviving that Hell on Earth had long ago given him up for dead.

But I had changed all that.

Hadn't I?

I looked around the empty field in which I stood. I was alone. Completely and utterly alone. It was 1953, the year of my birth. Sure, my family was alive, in fact, my mother was probably very, very pregnant at the moment, just about to give birth to me. My dad would be there, a very young Tom would be there.

But it wasn't my home any longer. How would Time survive this paradox? One Samuel Beckett waiting to be born, the other a forty-seven year old man out of place in the string. The string. The damned string had brought me to this point. Everything Al and I had gone through on the leaps…all gone. He would never know this Sam Beckett. With Beth, he'd have a family, he'd be a whole man, loving and happy, able to deal with his time as a POW, able to lead a happy and fulfilled life.

He'd never wind up working Starbright _or_ Quantum Leap. That damned bartender had made it pretty clear that this final act on my part would indeed be final. There was no longer the Al who shared my mind and soul thanks to some neatly placed cranial implants. I still had mine, but he'd never have his. No Ziggy, temperamental bitch that she was. She. For she truly always had been a she, thanks to that voice we gave her.

Now here I was in '53. The first thing I knew for certain was that I had to keep a low profile. I basically had to not exist. I would go by a name not my own. I guess I could keep my initials. Hell, I supposed I could even keep my first name, but Beckett would have to go.

I almost let out a hysterical laugh as the thought, _Use Calavicci_ came to mind. No, that wouldn't do, either. Too many memories there. Memories that were just that…memories. Of things that had never happened. Except that they _did_ happen. Would I experience magnaflux like I always did on the leaps? Would I forget…_could_ I forget…my best friend? The one I had done all this for? In the end, it was Al's chance at happiness that made me break the rule so hard I knew it could never be repaired.

Sam Beeks. There you go. Enough of a tie to the past…a future past that was no longer…enough of a tie to be ironic, yet plain enough not to call attention to myself. I'd go by Sam Beeks.

Okay, new identity sorted out. Now what?

I looked around. Farmland. I must be in the Midwest somewhere.

I had to get to New Mexico. Dammit, I couldn't even leap into the right state. Shit.

So I found a road and began to walk. Alone. Even through all the years of leaping, I had never truly been alone.

_I wish you were here, Al, walking this road with me._

But of course, as Mom used to say, if wishes were fishes, we'd all have a mess. Al wouldn't even know me, let alone walk with me.

Damn.

* * *

Odd jobs to earn a little money, hitchhiking with some odd and some very nice people and my memories carried me from Kansas all the way to a place in New Mexico I knew well…yet was as barren as it had been the day Al and I had scouted all those years ago…well, all those years in the future, actually. Stallion's Gate, a beautiful area, but nobody in sight all the way up or down that dusty thing that was laughingly called a road.

I'd gotten myself a piece of shit pickup and lots of gas. I'd loaded up on as much food and water as the truck could carry, and boxes upon boxes of blank paper. I had enough pencils to last me a year, and I smiled as I pulled to a dusty stop in front of the place that would someday have housed the living quarters for those at PQL. Now there was nothing but rock and red dryness all around me.

It would do. I had solitude, and nobody knew I was here. It didn't matter. Not one bit.

I had a pretty nifty tent. Not bad for 1953. It was solid, and the warmth of my kerosene heater would keep me through the cold desert nights. By day, I would just deal with the heat that would come in the summer. After all, it didn't matter. All I needed to do was write like a mad hen, and as soon as that was done…as soon as my packages were sealed and mailed, then it wouldn't matter whether I lived or died.

Lived or died.

I just had to make sure I wrote it all down. The project, the equations, the science behind Ziggy and the string theory. The leaps…oh, I remembered them all, but still I feared the Swiss cheese effect. I had to get to writing it down as soon as possible. Because I had to make sure that, thirty or so years into the future when Al read all this, he had every last detail.

Because in spite of the fact that I wouldn't be there, I could only hope and pray he would, and that he would feel somewhere in the deep recesses of his being that Quantum Leap needed to be built, needed to be done even without the guy who figured it all out. Maybe Al himself would be able to leap around. After all, if he was happy, he wouldn't feel the need to go leaping around without returning when the retrieval program was activated. Not like I did.

Once I got the tent set up and made myself a meal I didn't even taste, I sat down on the ground, using a small rock as my writing table, and began with a letter to my oldest and dearest friend…a man I missed so terribly it left a gnawing ache in my chest that I knew would never be filled by another.

_Dear Al…_

* * *

_July 21, 1954_

I was done.

I looked like Death warmed over. I was scraggly, scrawny and dirty. I hadn't seen people more than six times since I first arrived, and scared the hell out of them when I did. I made runs into town, got my supplies, and lived as a hermit…in my own self-imposed purgatory, doing nothing day and night but writing. I'd long ago worn calluses into my hands, then worn those calluses through nearly to the bone, wrapping my raw hands in strips of gauze, then later getting gloves on one of my trips to the nearest little town.

But I hadn't cared. I wrote furiously, faster and harder than I'd ever written before. And it was a good thing I'd been fast about it, too, because about six months ago, Swiss cheese began to claim me. Mostly it was the leaps I began forgetting. But it scared me enough to where I stopped sleeping, barely ate and wrapped myself in boxes of neatly bound and organized stacks of paper.

And now, as I placed the final letter in an envelope, I found I hadn't the spit to lick the flap to seal it. No matter, I had water. I dabbed some on a piece of cloth and got that envelope closed. I turned it around and wrote on the front:

_For Al_

_Do not open until May, 1995_

I'd already written him one letter, way back at the beginning, explaining things that he'd need to have explained. This one I now held in my hand was much, much more personal. How much more personal I could get than showing him how he'd been my lifeline over those leaps in those reams of paper I'd written, well, that was for Al to find out. The point was, everything I knew about PQL, everything I remembered about every change I made, every timeline that happened because of what I'd done, it was all there.

I turned to look at the boxes stacked around me. There were twelve now. Twelve of them for Al to receive, puzzle over, read through. Even if he didn't make PQL a reality, he'd sure have one helluva scientific discovery, and maybe that was the way it was supposed to happen.

I rose, barely able to stand on my feet, and staggered out of the tent. All that was left was to load the boxes into my truck and take them to town. Take them to the post office. We'd done it once on a leap, mailed a letter that wasn't to be delivered for another fifty years. And it had worked. Now, though, I had a dozen boxes. Would the U.S. government really come through for me and deliver them long after the sender was gone?

I had to have faith that it would.

If for no other reason, than to introduce Al to the man he'd never known. Introduce him to his best friend. To me.

I loaded the boxes up…it was morning, but I didn't know what time. I barked a short laugh. Time had become a nonentity to me. I'd seen enough of it passing backward and forward to last ten lifetimes, and anyway it just didn't matter anymore, did it? Nothing mattered except I had accomplished my goal.

The boxes in place, I started on the journey that would take me to Palua, the little pueblo-like town I'd used for what I needed, a place that wouldn't even exist by the time Al and I had given birth to PQL. Our baby. No, actually our baby was Ziggy.

I had to laugh again at that. Ziggy. Al had named her, though quite by accident. The only problem…the only thing that might've kept Ziggy from existing now was that I wouldn't be around to supply my own brain matter for her processors. She was a hybrid, she needed human brain tissue and nerve cells. I had to count on Al to find the right someone for the job.

But it wouldn't truly be our Ziggy, not the way the first one was. It had been a product of our cells fusing with her microchips that had made her who she was. No, she wouldn't be the same, but if Al could somehow find someone who could decipher everything I'd written, maybe she'd exist anyway somehow.

Tears pooled in my eyes. They surprised me.

My work was done. I'd kept out of Time's hair. It was 1954. It was 19…54…Al would be at Annapolis now, at the Naval Academy. I shook myself. No. No more time line fuck-ups. I had to get into town, get my picture taken and mail these boxes. Then it was off to the ether for me, blending into the Earth as best I could until my time came.

I used the bathroom at the town's one gas station to get cleaned up. I even had a fresh pair of clothes to wear for the picture. I wanted the one Al got to look halfway decent, though as I studied my face in the mirror, I realized that maybe I should've done that a year ago when I first got here. My eyes were sunken, dark circles having taken up permanent residence beneath them. My cheeks were hollow, my face drawn and my hair prematurely gray. I looked much older than forty-seven, and I knew it.

But at least he'd know somewhat what I'd looked like. He'd have a face to go with the boxes of papers, I owed him that much. Even if I didn't recognize the face staring back at me. Unlike the leaps…at least then I knew it really was me underneath…I'd undertaken this quest, it had been my every waking moment for so long, this writing down of future history…that now I didn't recognize the eyes I saw. I had no purpose anymore, I realized. My leaping was over. My cataloging of events was over. Finish the shave, put on the clothes, get the picture taken, mail the boxes. That was it. That was all that was left for Sam Beeks, formerly Dr. Sam Beckett.

And then it would be up to History to determine the outcome of my efforts.

* * *

There. I'd done it. The packages were on their way. I received a lot of flack from the guy behind the counter, but when the manager had come out, I guessed he sensed I was desperate, took pity on me and promised that the packages would be held in the post office in Albuquerque until the day I had requested them to be delivered.

Of course, the one big problem was that I had no idea where Al and Beth would end up living. I made a lot of assumptions based on the facts I _did_ have, and on where I postulated Al's career would take him. Plus I knew there couldn't be _that_ many Albert Francis Calaviccis in the United States. One way or another, those packages would make it to him.

Universe and Time willing.

But would they be willing? I couldn't dwell on that. I couldn't change the past anymore, and I had to take this gamble that I could change the future. Because it was all I had left. All except…

I got into my truck, gassed it up and headed down the highway. I had one more place I had to go before I melted unseen into history. One more person I couldn't help but try to find.

I pointed my truck toward Annapolis, Maryland.

* * *

Three days of straight driving, and I was there. My body was weak, and I knew it. But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore except this one final thing I had to do. I checked into a cheap motel with the last of my money. I showered and put on the last pair of clean clothes I had. Then, without meaning to, I nearly fell onto the bed…and fell asleep.

And that's how I stayed for almost twenty hours. I just slept. Dreamless. Quiet. Sound. I slept.

When I awoke, I was disoriented, suddenly finding myself thinking, _Who am I where am I what is my name?_ like I did at every leap. But then the memories returned, and I knew this wasn't a leap, it was reality. It was my life, such as it had become. I rose and smoothed out my shirt as I looked in the mirror. I was a nobody. A faceless, nameless nobody. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was nearly 10pm. I smiled. Perfect time for heading to a bar.

I knew the place was called Maggie's. I remembered Al had once told me that was his favorite hangout while at the academy. So I asked the hotel clerk, and she pointed me in the right direction. Four blocks and five stoplights later, I had reached my destination. Sure enough, a small bar with red neon letters proclaiming its name.

Maggie's.

_Be here, Al. Please be here._

I got out and walked up to the front door. I couldn't breathe, could hardly think straight. I opened the door and walked in. The interior was darkened, but it was crowded by more Navy uniforms than I'd ever seen in one place. That, and women. Lots of women. I couldn't help but smile. No wonder Al had loved it so much.

I walked in a little further and began scanning the room. I knew what Al had looked like this long ago, in 1954. I had seen pictures. I began walking between tables, looking into the faces of every Navy man and boy I came across. I was halfway through the bar, but had yet to spot him.

And then I heard his voice.

Slowly, I turned. There he was at the bar, telling some sort of story that had three other Navy guys and four girls laughing and giggling like nobody's business. I walked up to the opposite side of the square-shaped bar, directly across from him. I sat down on a stool, but asked only for water when the bartender came over. He looked sort of disgusted, but was kept so busy by other patrons, he completely forgot me.

That was fine.

I was seeing Al. A younger, much happier Al. Before Beth, before Vietnam, before me and what I'd put him through.

_Hi, Al. You look great._

My heart nearly stopped as he looked up, directly at me. His eyes met mine and for a moment my heart leapt as I thought I saw a flicker of recognition. But then, of course, it was gone. After all, this Al Calavicci didn't know me from a hole in the ground. I guess I'd been hoping that in some cosmic sense he'd know me, but that was ridiculous, and the fact that he soon turned back to his friends confirmed the suspicion.

Well, I'd seen him. This Al would know the pain of being a POW, but he would never know the pain of losing the woman he loved. Never. He would be happy. He would be whole.

_How can he ever be whole without you, Beckett?_

I closed my eyes and shook my head. Selfish bastard, that's me. Thinking I had to be there to round out his life. Without Beth, he'd been so miserable. Well, now he'd have her, goddammit, and that was as it should be.

_Stop fooling yourself into thinking you were that much to him._

Yeah. Stop fooling myself. I threw a quarter…the very last coin in my pocket…down on the bar and left. I didn't look back. I couldn't.

Al was happy.

I walked across the street to my truck. A list mist had begun to fall on this late Summer night. It matched my mood. I got into the driver's seat and leaned back into it as I banged the door closed.

"Uh, excuse me."

The voice startled me, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Turning, I was even _more_ startled to see who was standing outside my window.

"Al…" I breathed, unable to help myself. My God, he was so young. So young. He was only twenty.

He frowned. "How do you know my name?"

"Not important," I stammered, willing my big mouth to stay shut. "Just a guess, I suppose."

"I saw you in there, you look a little…down on your luck. Need a hot meal?"

I wanted to. I wanted to stay. I wanted to get to know the Al before all the pain he'd endured by the time I met him. I wanted so much to tell him who I was, how deep a friendship we'd shared, what we'd been through together…how glad I was that I'd found him.

"No thanks," I managed to smile, though I knew it didn't reach my eyes. "Thanks for offering, though. Have a good night."

He nodded, staring at me like I was a bug under a microscope. Even at twenty he was wise, a steel trap mind with dark glittering eyes that seemed to go right through me. "All right, then. Take care."

"You too, Sir." I started my truck. It cranked a few times before turning over, but finally was rumbling quietly beneath me. "Al…"

"You said my name again."

I let him have a small smile. "Take care in 1967, will ya?"

He was speechless. I almost laughed. I rarely had seen Al speechless.

"Good-bye, Al. Have a…have a really good life."

I shifted my truck into gear and hit the gas, leaving a twenty-year old Albert Calavicci standing in the middle of the street. I watched him in my rearview mirror until I made a turn five blocks down.

Back to my motel to gather my few meager belongings, and then back to New Mexico.

To die.

* * *

**AL**

_June 15, 1986_

One helluva day. Today was one helluva day.

Boy, oh, boy. That party Beth planned for me was _nuts_! It isn't my fiftieth, or even my fifty-fifth. It's only my fifty-second. But Beth said it was a birthday worth celebrating, because it was mine. The woman is amazing.

Our girls were there. Everyone we _knew_ was there. Even the Navy suits seemed to have a good time, a little less stuffy than usual. It was definitely an event worth remembering, though, especially when Rear Admiral Jansen got up there and started crooning when the band took a break.

One helluva day. I can't help but laugh.

It's nearly eight o'clock. I can hear Beth padding softly down the stairs just as the doorbell rings.

"I'll get it, hon!" she calls out.

I groan. I hope it's not someone who's gonna stay a while, 'cause all I want to do right now is ravish my wife. I hear the front door open, and a man's voice wafts into the living room. Then Beth calls out to me.

"Al?"

I rise to my feet and meet her in the foyer. I frown as a take in the United States Postal worker standing in the doorway.

"Al, this man has some packages for you."

"For me?"

"Are you…Admiral Albert Francis Calavicci?"

"Yes…I…I am."

"Oh, good. I found you," the poor guy breathes, acting like he's been at this all day, this tryin' to find me business. "Please wait a moment while I get the packages.

Beth shivers next to me. "Cold, babe?"

"A little."

"Well, why don't you go get warmed up and I'll be along in half a shake," I say suggestively, waggling my eyebrows.

"Albert Calavicci!" she laughs, slapping my arm playfully. Then her lips move to my ear, her breath sending shivers down my spine. "Don't be too long."

I can feel my hormones racing through me at lightning speed. _Oh, God, mailman, hurry it up, will ya?_

When he reappears with a dolly, there are four boxes stacked on it. Boxes that look like they'd seen better days. In fact, they looked old as hell, the tape cracked and peeling, the formerly white cardboard now yellowish-brown.

"Who're they from?" I ask as the guy starts bringing them into the foyer.

"Don't know, Sir. Someone by the initials of S.B. in New Mexico."

"New Mexico? That's funny, I don't know anyone in New Mexico."

He went to get the next dolly full of them. I leaned down to inspect one of the boxes. On the top it had a return address that read:

_S.B._

_Stallion's Gate_

_New Mexico_

I frowned. Where the hell was Stallion's Gate? Who was S.B.? I wracked my brain trying to think if I knew anyone with those initials. I was drawing a blank.

On the lower right hand corner of the particular box top I was looking at, it said, _Open 4th_. Instructions on which box to open first? Odd. Real odd. The guy brought the third dolly full of boxes. I began to look at all of them, and found that indeed they all had instructions as to which was to be opened first, second, third…

When he brought the final four, he said, "Mr. Calavicci, these have been sitting in the Albuquerque post office for thirty years."

I frowned. "Thirty years?"

"Yes, Sir. They were taken to a tiny place called Palua that doesn't even exist anymore. They had strict instructions not to deliver until 1994."

"To me."

He nodded. "To you. The postmaster in Albuquerque had to do one helluva search, but he finally found you, and then the packages were sent to us here in San Diego to deliver to you. That's why the address is sorta scratched out, there."

I smiled, completely perplexed, highly intrigued. "Well, thanks for your trouble."

"Hey, no trouble at all. For all I know, I was part of history in the making tonight," the man grinned.

I cocked my head and gave him a smile back as he returned to his truck. With a wave, he was gone. I closed the door and turned to look at the twelve boxes sitting in our foyer. But then Beth came in…wearing absolutely nothing but a very sheer bathrobe…and the boxes were forgotten for the night.

* * *

Next morning was Sunday. As usual, I was up around 5am. I made some coffee, then went to the boxes still sitting in the foyer. I soon found the one that said _Open 1st_ and carried it into the den. I sat down with my cup of coffee and touched the tape sealing the box top on. It crumbled in my hands. I was more than intrigued, I was curious as hell! Who would've sent me something thirty years ago with instructions that it not be delivered until now? What could it be?

When I got the box top off, the first thing I found was a manila envelope. I opened it and pulled out a piece of white paper, yellowed at the corners. It was a handwritten letter addressed to me. I sat back and began to read.

_Dear Al,_

_Since chances are that you never met me and have no idea who I am, let me start by introducing myself. My name is Dr. Samuel Beckett. I was born in 1953, the year I'm actually in right now, but due to a strange, long, wonderful and sometimes sad journey, I now find myself a forty-seven year old man in 1953 sitting in the desert of New Mexico writing you this letter._

_There's a project called Starbright. By now I'm sure you've heard of it, assuming you stayed in the Navy. In fact, you may even be working on it, I don't know what the future holds now. We met on that project, Al, and became good friends. We then went on to a project of our own, something called Project Quantum Leap. It's about time travel . We were successful, at least, to a point._

_I know this probably sounds like a load of horse shit to you, but if you'll just hear me out, if you'll just read everything I've sent you, I think in the end you'll understand, that it'll make sense. Inside these twelve boxes is a history that, in your world, never happened. My life, your life, the project. The things we went through together, the changes we made to history._

_The most important change of all, perhaps, is the one that got you where you are now, with Beth. Yes, I know your wife's name, and you'll read about how later. I'm quite certain I won't be alive when you get this, at least, not the me that's writing this. I can only assume the baby Sam who's born this very month that I write this, will be alive, but I don't know that your paths will cross, or whether they were even meant to. Because, see, now the past…our past…is something that hasn't yet been written._

_Al, we were once best friends. We went through a lot together. Please keep an open mind and don't just burn these boxes because this doesn't make sense to you. Read. Read what I'm sending you. It's important, Al, moreso than you could possibly imagine._

_Love,_

_Sam_

I didn't even realize that my hands were shaking until I lowered the paper to my lap. My head was spinning, as though somehow I'd gotten drunk and dizzy all in the same moment. There was still something in the manila envelope, I noticed. Picking it up, I slid my hand inside and came out holding a small photograph.

My jaw dropped, my mouth went dry.

I remembered this guy. I remembered him…it was 1954, and suddenly I was thrust back into that year, into Maggie's where I'd been a twenty year-old cadet. I was sitting there, laughing with my friends, minding my own business. Then _he_ walked in.

I didn't notice him at first. Not until he'd sat down opposite me. I had felt the strangest sensation, a shiver that ran up and down my spine. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and I looked up to find his eyes on me. He looked sad, malnourished and just plain down on his luck. He gave me a small smile, and I saw…what had I seen? Recognition? Hope? I couldn't tell. Hell, I was only twenty, and I was half drunk. Then Jerry said something funny and I looked away.

When I looked back, he was gone. My eyes hit the door just as he was exiting. For some unknown reason, I felt compelled to follow him. When I found him, he had just gotten into a pickup truck that looked like it had seen better days. I'd spoken to him, and…he'd known my name.

As I stared at the picture in my hands, that memory came flooding back full force. The man had known my name even though I'd never seen him before in my life. And what else…he'd warned me. He'd warned me to be careful in 1967.

My breath caught in my throat. That was the year I'd been shot down in 'Nam. He knew. He _knew_.

As I held the picture in front of me, staring at a face I hadn't seen in thirty years, there was already no doubt in my mind that whoever Dr. Samuel Beckett was, and whatever it was he had to say about time travel, I would believe him. He'd been there. And he'd known.

"Al?"

I didn't even hear her call my name.

"Al, honey, what is it?"

I could do nothing but shake my head. I rose, clutching the photograph in one hand, the letter in the other, and headed out the sliding glass door to the patio, down the steps to the back yard, out of the back yard into the woods behind our home.

_We met on that project, Al, and became good friends._

A past I didn't know. Yeah, I'd heard of Starbright, but I wasn't working on it.

_Inside these twelve boxes is a history that, in your world, never happened._

In my world. He'd…what had he done? Changed history so we'd never meet? But if we were good friends, why would he do that?

_The most important change of all, perhaps, is the one that got you where you are now, with Beth._

He'd…changed history.

Why the hell was I suddenly believing in time travel?

Because of that man. _This_ man, my mind corrected as I looked down at the picture. This man whom I'd met, who'd known my name, who'd known what year I got shot down. Whoever he was, we'd worked together on something that had enabled him to change history.

Even though it meant that somehow, for some reason, we ended up never meeting.

My brain was ready to explode. I had to get back to those boxes. I had to read the story for myself. What had happened? Who was Dr. Samuel Beckett, and why had he sent all this to me if history was as it should be?

I headed back to the house, but Beth and girls were already gone to church. I missed church. But at the moment, I didn't really care. I sat down in my chair and picked up the first ream of papers, carefully labeled telling me to read them first.

* * *

My family came home from church. I didn't even speak to them, but Beth, God bless her, left me alone. She could see I was engrossed, probably thought it was something Top Secret I couldn't tell her about. She took the girls to lunch with friends. After that, I'm not sure what happened. I didn't sleep for a week.

Donna. Gushie…how do you even say that, Gushie? Tina…somebody called Verbena Beeks.

All these people I didn't know. A future that wasn't, that never happened.

And yet…according to the yellowed papers I was reading…_had_.

He'd leaped when we weren't ready. Ziggy, something that seemed like a computer from Hell from what Dr. Beckett said.

_Sam…call me Sam, Al._

I started and looked up, expecting to see someone standing in the room with me. But there was no one. It was night, and one light burned brightly next to me as I lowered the sheaf of papers to my lap.

Who had said that?

I looked around again. There was no one there.

I had only one box left. My mind was going a million miles per hour. I closed my eyes and rubbed them. They hurt. They hurt like hell.

I was losing it for sure. I'd heard a voice as surely as I would've heard Beth's if she'd been standing before me.

And that's when I fell asleep. Passed out, actually.

* * *

When I did finally come to, I found myself in bed with Beth's worried face over me asking me if I was okay. Rapid-fire questions. What happened? What's in those boxes? Whatever it is, it isn't worth your health, Al. Nothing is.

"What did you do with my boxes?" I asked, sitting bolt upright in bed.

"Oh, Al, honey, _forget_ about them for now, will you? You've been sleeping for two days straight!"

"Two days?"

I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to the living room. My boxes were still there. My precious boxes. On the floor where I'd fallen was the picture I hadn't let go since I'd found it. My picture of him. Of Dr. Beckett. Of…Sam.

"Al, this has gone too far!"

I heard her, but I didn't. I grabbed the last box, the only one I hadn't opened yet.

"I'm taking the girls to the beach house for the weekend."

"Fine."

"Al!"

I loved her. God knows I love her more than anything. But there was something waiting for me, something big. I could feel it. I'd read all the scientific mumbo-jumbo about Project Quantum Leap. Only understood about an eighth of it, but I'd read every word. All the leaps Sam had been on, all the good he'd done, all the wrongs he'd put right. And me. I was there with him throughout it all. How we'd met…me being drunk, him finding me. How we were so connected even before the neural implants, but after they'd been installed in our brains how we'd been able to sense each other. _Feel_ each other there like tickles inside our minds, he'd said.

And I knew nothing of it. It made me mad as hell to think this man had taken it upon himself to change my history like this. After all I'd read about what we'd gone through together, why? Why would he make it all never exist?

And as Beth and girls packed and left for the weekend, I took the top off the last box. I had to know. Why had Dr. Sam Beckett changed things so drastically that in effect, his leaping had never happened? It made my brain hurt to even try to comprehend it all, but I had to know. Dammit, I _had_ to know.

I read. And I learned why.

My hands trembled as, hours later, the final page of the story slipped from my fingers and fell softly to the floor.

He'd done it for me. To make _me_ happy. I'd lost Beth in the original timeline, he said. She hadn't waited for me to come home from Vietnam. She'd declared me dead and married someone named Dirk.

_I saw the pain in your eyes the first time I leaped in on Beth, Al. The pain and anger and sadness. You were miserable. As much as you tried to hide it, I'd never seen you cry until that Leap. You loved her more than anything else in this whole world. So when I got the chance to set things right for you, to return the love of your life to you, I took it. Even though I knew it meant we'd probably never meet. I had to, Al. And I can only hope you're as happy as you thought you would be._

Tears filled me eyes. Unbidden, but I couldn't keep them from coming. This man had given up his own life for my happiness. If I hadn't believed it before, I believed it with all my heart now. Because when all's said and done, how many people out there would give up everything…_everything_…for the sake of friendship?

Not very goddamn many.

I happened to look down at the box as I reached to pick up that last sheet of paper from the floor, and it was then I noticed that box wasn't completely empty. Not yet. Lying on the bottom was one more manila folder. One more thing for me to read, I guessed.

I turned it over. It was marked, "Al – please read when you're alone."

I looked around. It was already dark, with only one lamp on next to me. I grasped the envelope in one hand and turned off the light with the other. Slowly I climbed the steps. Why did I feel like a dog being taken on its last walk through the pound? Silently I entered my small office. Now that Sharon was married and Janice was off at college, only Mary and Lizzie were still home, so we'd converted Sharon's room into an office for me, something I'd always wanted.

I sat down on the old leather couch that was along one wall. I studied the writing on the front of the envelope, then looked again at the picture I held tightly in my hand. That man…Sam…what could this last envelope contain? And why did he want me to read it when I was alone?

My fingers fumbled with the clasp on the envelope flap, but I did finally get it open. And as though all the other things I'd read hadn't already changed my life, this letter from Sam Beckett did so a thousand-fold.

_Dear Al,_

_I guess if you're reading this now, you're still with me, through all these reams and reams of paper, and know everything that has happened in my life that hasn't happened in yours. Then again, knowing you, you probably skipped to the last box and dug down to find this first. You always were one for reading the last chapter of a book before going back to the first._

I had to smile. He was right about that…well, except for these boxes. This, I'd done in order.

_I don't really know how to write this, my last letter to you, because some of the things I'm going to say might surprise you. For all I know they'll make you take every piece of paper and burn or shred it to get me back out of your life where, to the best of your recollection, I have never been to begin with._

I frowned. What on Earth could he say now after all the other things he'd shown me?

_You were everything to me. Yes, on the leaps, but also before that and even moreso now as I sit here alone in New Mexico and write this. I look around me, Al, and I see the shadows of buildings I remember that will never be built. I hear the voices of friends and coworkers that will never come together as the PQL family we once had. I hear echoes of your laughter, smell remnants of your cigars, see your flashy, brightly-colored clothing before my eyes, and realize I'm hallucinating again. Seeing my past…my future…our future._

Cigars? Yes, I smoked cigars. Brightly-colored clothing? What'd he mean by that?

_I knew the moment I met you that it was Fate, Al. Destiny. That's why I stopped and helped you when you were at your lowest, why I looked beyond that Calavicci bravado to the man who was beneath, the man I could see every time I looked into your eyes._

_Sometimes we'd be on a Leap together and I wanted so badly to touch you, to hug you, even just to pat your back. But I couldn't. All these years, Al, of being separated from you. I could've made the choice to come back. I could've seen you in the flesh, spent the rest of my life with you always in it. But, choices are choices, and although I regret that you're not here to share my life any longer, I will never regret making you happy, because that's all I ever wanted to do for you was make you happy._

I brushed at a stray tear that threatened to run down my face. Here I was crying again. I hadn't cried since I'd returned home from 'Nam to find my Bethie waiting for me. She'd waited all those years, and I'd cried when I saw her there with such a big smile on her face. The VC had never been able to make me cry. My sister's death hadn't even made me cry. But Beth had. And now, this man…this Sam Beckett…he was making me cry, too.

_I guess what I'm not doing a very good job of saying, Al is this: I love you. I have loved you for so long, and that love grew even stronger on the leaps. Not because you were my lifeline, my only link to my time. It was because no matter what happened, you kept the faith, Al. You stood by me, fought for PQL to continue, fought for our dream. Day or night, you were by my side in an instant, no matter what. You cared. You loved me, I could see it in your eyes. Al, this is deeper and truer than anything I've ever felt. But it's like they say: if you love someone, set them free. If they come back again, then in the end it was meant to be._

_And so, Al, I did set you free. I fixed it so Beth would wait for you, so you would have the life with her you always wanted. At least, I pray that's how it's turned out for you. But know this, Admiral Albert Francis Calavicci: I will never love another the way I love you. That love is what keeps me going even now. As you kept your love for Beth alive in your heart when you were MIA, so do I now keep my love for you alive in mine._

I was speechless. There was only one more paragraph, but the lines were so blurred by tears I could barely make them out.

_I'm sure that by now I'm probably dead. But I checked, and there was a baby born to the Beckett family in Indiana, Al. A baby they named Sam. So somewhere, in your time…I'm still alive. And if you do find me…if you are ever able to, or even willing to…I can only hope that on some cosmic level I will know you as well as I do now. Because as much as my heart sings for your happiness, it also dies a little more each day when I think of all I have lost in that spitfire package named Al that I'll never see again._

_I love you._

_Always,_

_Sam_

* * *

I sat there for hours and cried like a baby. Cried for the life I'd lost, cried for what Sam had lost, for my brain fighting with my heart at this confession of his. He was a man. A _man_! How could he write this sort of love letter to me? Had I been that way in his timeline? Someone who would love a man? I held the photo up in front of my eyes. Without really understanding why, I clutched it to my heart and held it tight as I cried myself to sleep.

We had lived. We had loved. We had lost.

And that was when I had the dream. The dream that would send me on a journey so fantastic, so terrifying, so outside my realm of experience, that I was destined to lose everything…and yet somehow gain everything in return.

When I woke from that dream, I knew what I had to do. No matter why he'd done it, no matter what he'd sacrificed for me, I knew the pain in Sam's words was real. In giving me the life I had apparently longed for when he knew me, he'd given up everything. It wasn't right. As much as I loved Beth and the girls, as happy as my life really had been, I couldn't leave him alone like that in the past. I couldn't. I had to begin a quest of my own now.

My quest for Sam.

And I knew just where to start.

_(to be continued...)_


End file.
